#sets this here

“You know, if you keep coming in to see me I might start getting the wrong idea, princess.” // @heavenvessel​

What little color has has left drains from his face. Sober, in an instant. Phoenix can no longer hear the music playing through Lux, can no longer focus on anything but the way his sternum hurts. An old pain, one that he hasn’t thought about in a while   ---   the scars hard when he moves to rub at where his shirt is open. He’s worn them with pride up until this moment, until it dawns on him    ---    like a rush of cold water   ----   that he might still be dead.  Looping. Again and again, with only one ending possible.

A familiar panic sets in. Breathing becomes difficult   ---   each breath harder to pull than the last. He thinks about them, they come to him in a downpour. Memories. Ones made while in his own personal, special torment. They aren’t real; he didn’t live those lives but he remembers them and feels the pain they brought   ---   knives, hundreds of them, all finding home in the same place and making Phoenix feel so exposed. A raw nerve. He can’t breathe. He can’t think. In this state, he can’t eat or dream or smile or live. Stuck. He’s suck, the rug tense in someone else’s hands, about to be pulled out from under him. It’s familiar   ---   the kisses in the dark before the first plunge, before choking sounds and the hottest tears.  ‘Darling?” A name he loves   ---   but it’s not Lucifer’s voice. Phoenix turns slowly to find James in one of the devil’s suits, green eyes shining. Knowing. Waiting. He doesn’t need to look down to know the knife is in his hand, doesn’t need to think beyond words that echo again and again.

Send my muse a nightmare. Make my muse scream and wake up in a sweat. / @adversitybloomed

There are not many things that can tear a man open. This is one of them.  Most would say that childbirth is the most joyous thing that can be for a a person. It a moment celebrated, cherished and kept warm in your heart. No one ever speaks about the low numbers of people that die in childbirth. It is not mentioned, it is not spoken about. Hanzo’s mother had been on the verge of death when she had given birth to Genji. That had been the closest thing in his family to seeing an event like that.   But right now seeing the amount of blood: there’s so much blood.  The Shimada has seen many things in his life, many but nothing can prepare a man for this. Nothing can prepare for the loss of someone you love so deeply. That someone is the other half of your soul, and the aguish that rips through him is hot like a knife.  No. No. No.--   “Shut up.” He snarls at one of the nurses. Is it the shock echoing in his frame? No one can be quiet sure because the way he sinks to cradle the body. When he moves to cradle the corpse of his wife, the whole the bodies of what have been a son- he can feel the way his chest is tight and how his breathing catches in his throat. And the rapid snapping of Japanese.     ‘You lost them, how could you do this to us? How could you. I trusted you-’ The way he snaps at the nursing staff, spirit dragons shifting from the distress from him. How the air changes how he- something snaps unhinged---